


Champions Against the World

by boychik



Category: Scott Pilgrim - Fandom, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 17:04:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/928964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boychik/pseuds/boychik





	Champions Against the World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Haywire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haywire/gifts).



He’s actually insane, Ramona thinks. This whole girl is a cliché, from the Hello Kitty phone charms to her nonexistent taste in music to the hair she cut herself. Badly, at that. And those Catholic-schoolgirl kneesocks were just icing on the cake, Ooh look at me I’m so sweet and innocent! Let’s go catch butterflies and bake chocolate chip cookies! She probably blushed every time he tried to hold her hand. Wait, that’s actually pretty cute, Ramona has to admit to herself as she pictures the scene.

(Scott’s face is already fading from behind his stupid, stupid hat. He’s just another ex in the end. If she had a choice, she would burn that hat.)

But instead she sees Knives, dancing around in the gray snow by the edge of the street, practically skipping as she walks, kicking at the curb with her precious little fringed boots, catching snowflakes on her tiny perfect tongue…

 

He’s totally crazy, Knives thinks upon seeing Ramona for the first time. Just look at her! She’s nothing special. Just because she has big boobs and amazing hair and is an American who can travel through subspace at supersonic speed doesn’t mean she’s hot crap—

Knives’ stomach sank then as she realized that these were, indeed, all wonderful things. She had heard other things about Ramona too. Knives wasn’t a lesbian or anything, but she had heard that Ramona had been known to get it on with girls. Or at least, one girl. But who knew, there could be more… 

Knives hadn’t seen a lesbian since the day she walked into the girls’ washroom and saw Theresa and Anne-Marie making out by the sinks. Her heart had hammered through her chest at the sight, and no doubt a huge blush had crept up from her besocked toes to her tragically virginal hair. They were probably too busy to notice her, but she edged out of the room as quietly as she could, which also required going very slowly and not looking away. It was interesting, to say the least. She wondered when it would happen again.

*

So strange was it to both of them when they found themselves sitting away from the party, alone together, on Julie’s floor. It was a week after the break-up. No one had seen Scott for a week. Not that they cared.

The room was dark, and full of boxes. Thumping music carried throughout the house, but in this room—what was it, exactly? it was too large to be a closet and too small to be a basement, but why would you have just a room full of boxes?—the noise faded out, or was muffled by the icebergs of cardboard. Ramona and Knives had to push away piles of boxes just to find a place to sit down, and now they were curled up so tightly their feet crossed paths. They tried to avoid it, then tried to make excuses, then apologize, and then gave up, leaning against each other. 

It had been silent a while, and they had been drinking. Ordinarily Knives would have been in no such position to break the law, but after all Scott had just dumped her, cheerlessly piercing the million bubbles of her love, and Ramona had dragged out a bottle of chardonnay with this sardonic look on her face. 

So when Ramona asked, “Want some?” Knives thought: What the hell, if I wasn’t good enough for him, and she wasn’t good enough for him, I may as well act like Ramona for a night. Throw my caution to the winds. Second skin and all that. Still, she got a strange feeling just thinking about it. 

“Thanks,” Knives said, accepting the bottle and taking a swig. It tasted poisonous. She tried not to make a face and quickly handed it back.

An awkward silence would descend in approximately three seconds. “So, how are you?” Knives asked, not wanting to mind how forced it sounded, how stiffly those four words hung in the air. To her relief Ramona played it off.

“I’ve been better,” Ramona deadpanned. But then: “It sucks. Of course it sucks.”

Knives hadn’t heard Ramona complain with that sort of overcast tone before. What was it? Almost defeated. She sounded nothing like herself without that extra edge of ice and mystery. Knives stayed quiet.

“And now my head hurts more than ever.” Ramona scratched at the nape of her neck, frowning. “He keeps calling me. I can feel it.”

“Who?” Knives asked.

“Gideon. My ex.” And then, surprisingly: “I need you to help me stop him.” Her voice was as low and as serious as her gaze.

“But why me?”

Ramona lowered the glass; it sloshed half-empty in the amber light. “Because Scott's useless.”

“No he's—” He’s not, she was about to say, but then she remembered. Those days when he would just sit and play Street Fighter all day, not bothering to eat or shower or even pee. Or all too often, when he would oversleep and come to pick her up half an hour, an hour, two hours past their appointed time as she checked her phone over and over and exhaled the white ghostly clouds of Canadian winter. He was long out of college, but he couldn't cook for shit. He refused to cut his hair when it was getting long (he’d denied it); he had no interest in her friends (in truth, it had taken her a while to notice that his eyes glazed over as she rattled on about Tamara and Derek); he couldn't even beat her at DDR, for goodness sakes! (And then there was Ramona. Ramona always.) “Yeah, he is,” she admitted. “I hadn’t realized...”

“So you will help me?” Ramona’s eyes are so bright as she looks over at Knives in the dark.

“Well, uh, I’m not so su—”

“I'll dye your hair blue if you help me,” Ramona interrupted.

Knives' eyes widened. “Deal.”

Just like that. This kid! Ramona laughed. “You’re so earnest, Knives. It’s cute.” She set her glass down. Her voice had taken on a certain softness around the edges. Knives smiled. Ramona was so much less intimidating when she was drunk. Her face went all pink and her eyes were all smiley. It was really nice.

“You know when I first met you I thought you were really dumb.” Ramona peered at Knives. “But you’re not. You’re pretty cool.”

“Thanks,” said Knives. “I mean, not about the being dumb part, but about the, the cool part.” Oh, this was bad, was she starting to blush?

“Are you blushing?” Ramona asked (how could she know in the dark? Was it some subspace-travelling American thing? A Ramona thing...but no, she just must be picturing it then...!) then before Knives could answer: “Can I kiss you?”

“Okay,” said Knives, and that’s just what they did.

*

(a little later)

“What is it like?” asked Knives. “Holding a girl, I mean.” The words spilled out before she could stop them, heavy and curious, pooling through their conversation.

“’Snice,” Ramona answered, sniffing and releasing a stream of air through her nostrils. “Wanna find out?” 

“You’re drunk,” Knives said, laughing.

“It’s true,” said Ramona.

*

A month later, they’re lying in bed, eyes half shut in a futile attempt to block out the morning shafts of Canadian sunshine. Their short blue hair criss-crossed the pillow like strands of seaweed.

“I’ve kissed the lips that kissed—” a sleepy Knives began, but she realized there was nothing more she could say. 

Ramona smiled as she rolled over in bed. “C’mere, you,” she said. “You’ve kissed my lips and you’ll do it again, won’t you?” She never thought that she’d be there, snuggled up to Knives Chau of all people, and told her so. “You’re not even ticklish behind the knees,” she teased, almost amazed as she stroked Knives’ legs.

“It’s not fair to compare, Rammy.”

“It’s not fair to call me Rammy, either.”

“You don’t like being called Rammy?” Knives peeked over her shoulder at Ramona, surprised. Ramona shook her head. “But it’s so cuuuute!”

“How would you feel if someone called you Chau-Chau all the time?”

“Oh.”

“Now you see.”

It’s strange, Knives thought. She always thought she’d be miserable without him, but now with Ramona there wasn’t that same sort of moping, coping, waiting around. She played games, to be sure, but they were different; they were not hollow at the core.

So when Ramona announces, “We’re going to find him today,” Knives knows that everything’s going to be fine. ’Cause if her love can’t cut him into dust, no one’s could! 

Ramona smiles as if she can hear her thoughts. “It’s You and Me vs. the World, you know that, right?” 

If there’s one thing she’s absolutely sure of, it’s that there’s no way they can lose. Knives stares back, confident. “I know, Ramona,” she says. “I know. We’re gonna win.” And then she’s so excited she starts laughing: “We’re gonna win, Ramona, we’re gonna win!” It’s only seven in the morning and already she feels almost delirious.

“Then let’s go,” Ramona says, firmly but not unkindly; she takes Knives’ hand tightly in her own and gives it a reassuring squeeze. They exit with backs straight and heads held high: champions of the morning, champions against the world.


End file.
